Recurrence

by Dave Norem

  “I’m from out of town. Do you know of a decent restaurant nearby?”

  She glanced around and then at him, “Are you sure that’s what you’re looking for?”

  Despite himself, he felt his face reddening. “Yes, that’s all I’m looking for. Not many people around here look trustworthy, and I’m stuck in this place until my car is ready. I haven’t found a decent place to eat, and I am hungry.”

  She hesitated a moment longer and then released the doorknob with a slight smile on her face. He noticed that her teeth were slightly crooked but were clean and white looking against the red lipstick.

  She was neither fat nor thin. Her collar length dark hair looked clean, and she didn’t seem to be wearing any other makeup. He saw that she was nearly as tall as him in her half-heeled pumps. Her below-the-knee dark blue skirt and pink blouse were plain looking and slightly wrinkled but not soiled. She was definitely not a prostitute, as he’d thought for only a moment when he first saw her rump in front of him.

  She had seemed to be appraising him as well and then spoke again. “Yes, there is a restaurant a few blocks from here and the food is alright. I eat there sometimes in the morning or at lunch on weekends.” Her voice was light but sounded more mountain than city.

  “What about supper?” he asked.

  She seemed surprised at the question, “What?”

  “Don’t you eat supper there?” John asked.

  It was her turn to blush. “I’m not going into a restaurant alone for dinner, it would be too conspicuous.”

  “Where do you eat supper?”

  After asking, he felt that he shouldn’t have and decided to let it drop. She seemed sensitive to his questions and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

  She glanced around again and then said, “Let’s walk down to the corner, and I’ll show you which way it is.”

  He nodded, and she turned and relocked her door. He started her way, but she held up a hand and said, “There’s a back way.” She pointed to the hall behind him.

  She passed, and he followed her through the hall and down the back stairs. It dawned on him that he had been close to her twice and hadn’t noticed any perfume smell or any other scent for that matter.

  When they exited at the bottom of the stairs, she looked both ways and said, “They lock this door after ten o’clock, so don’t expect to get back in this way if you stay out late.”

  “I’m only planning to be here one more night but I’m not on a schedule.”

  She looked directly at him and said, “I eat supper in my room alone, if at all. There’s no way to cook anyhow.”

  “Well, would you eat there if you were with someone?”

  “You mean the restaurant?”

  “Yes, I’ll buy supper if you’d like to try an evening meal there?”

  She stepped back slightly and looked closely at him. “No obligation?”

  Relaxing, he smiled at her. “No obligation.”

  She said, “That would be nice,” and then turned toward the closest end of the alley and began walking. A moment later, he caught up with her.

  Later, in the restaurant, she admitted that she was hungry and didn’t have enough money to eat in a restaurant during the evening when prices were higher. Instead, she would usually buy a piece of fruit or a candy bar to eat in the room.

  She told him that her name was Alice. From then on, words from the tune Alice’s Restaurant flitted through his mind whenever he thought of her. For no reason that he could think of, he told her that his name was Tom, the name that would appear on his fake driver’s license.

  She told him that she was from Dennison, some twenty miles south of Culpeper, and married. They had two little girls, two-and-a-half and four. Her husband had fallen from a bridge two years before and broke his back.

  She continued, telling him that it was a job-related accident and that they had received a cash settlement, plus a monthly check from the construction company. It was enough for them to pay his medical bills and purchase a house, slightly improving their former living conditions. Then, six months previously, her husband had become despondent and shot himself.

  “Not just once, but twice,” she said. “It was a .22 pistol and the first bullet went straight through the temples and behind both of his eyes. He shot himself again, up the nose, and it killed him. Thank God the rest of us were gone.” She shuddered and then continued, “The police thought I did it because of the two shots, and because the coroner said there was a thirty-minute lapse between them.”

  “I was at the grocery store with the girls when it happened, but they didn’t believe me. They said I had another man do it. Anyway, there was no other man and the prosecutor dropped it. We lived back up in the hills on a dead-end road, and nobody came or went unseen. All of the neighbors testified at the inquest that there had never been another man up there since we bought the house.”

  “Jesus,” John said without thinking, and then looked to see if she was offended. Some southern people would take offense quickly to what he’d just said.

  She ignored it and continued, “It got worse. The construction company cut the checks to one-third and we were going hungry to keep the house and the car. I got the only job available in the area, in a coal company office. The car broke down less than a month later, and then they fired me for missing two days and not calling in. The phone company had cut us off too.”

  “Before I could get the car fixed, the construction company declared bankruptcy and cut us off completely. We lost it all.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes and John reached over and patted her on top of the hand.

  She smiled and placed her other hand on top of his. “Thank you. You’re a nice man Tom.”

  Before he could respond, the waitress brought their orders and the mood brightened. Later he asked her if the construction company was still in business.

  “Yes,” she gritted, “Their family has owned half of the town for a hundred years and controls all of the jobs too. They’re bigger than ever, but they do a lot of cash business, and they’re connected to city and county officials too.”

  She told him the name of the company and he filed it away in the back of his mind for future reference.

  After they had eaten, she told him that she had become despondent from mooching and living with relatives. She had come down to Richmond looking for work, so that she could save until she was able to buy a dependable car. Then she would either find a place for her and the girls in Richmond or be able to drive from their hometown to work. She worked in a shoe factory not far from the hotel and saved every penny that she could.

  While walking back to the hotel, she asked him what he was doing in Richmond. He told her that his parents had died in a wreck in Pennsylvania several months before, and he was going to visit his only remaining relative, an uncle in Portsmouth. She seemed satisfied with his response and didn’t question him further. When they reached the mouth of the alley behind the hotel, she stopped.

  “Thank you so much, Tom. Will you do me one more favor?”

  “Sure, Alice,” he said.

  “I’d rather not have us walk into the hotel together. Would you walk around the block and allow me enough time to get into my room before you come through the lobby. I’ll have to live here for a while yet, and I don’t want anybody to get the wrong idea.” She glanced around and then quickly leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  She was nowhere in sight when he reached his room, and he assumed that he probably wouldn’t see her again. An hour later, while he was reading an outdated magazine he’d found in the lobby, he heard four light taps on the wall behind him. He was about to doze off and was disoriented at first, then realized that it came from a common wall with Alice’s room.

  He faced the wall at the approximate spot the sound had come from and trapped it four times with his fing
ernail. There was a delay of a full minute and then four more taps from her side. It finally sunk in. Pocketing his key, he went to the door and scanned the hallway for traffic. Seeing that it was clear, he quietly pulled his door closed and stepped over to hers. The door opened with the first tap of his fingernail, and he slipped inside.

  She was standing behind the door in a floor-length flannel nightgown with long sleeves. He noticed that her lipstick was gone and that her hair was brushed out and gleaming in the soft light. The lighting came from the single-dim-bulb of a floor lamp in the corner.

  He had noticed no smell of her at all before, but now she smelled faintly of soap, and more—the smell of a clean and healthy woman fresh from a bath.

  She leaned forward and closed the door silently, brushing lightly against him as she did. They were facing each other only inches apart. Before he could say anything, she reached out and placed a finger upright across his lips.

  There was only a single wooden kitchen chair in the room for seating and other furnishings were the same as in his room. There was a bed, a chest of drawers, and a dresser: none of them matching.

  She took him by the hand and led him across the bare floor to stand at the foot of the bed. Facing him again, she reached up and placed a palm on either side of his face. John placed both of his hands at her waist, just above the hips. They gazed at each other for seconds without speaking and then she rose on her toes and kissed him slowly and softly on the lips.

  He held onto her waist but did not try to pull her tight.

  Alice stepped back and gazed up into his eyes again, then murmured softly, “It was so wonderful being able to talk to someone nice and to feel like a woman again. I don’t want to be alone tonight, I want to be held.”

  Later she told him that it had been over two years.

  He left much later, slept late, and awoke in his own bed. As he was leaving through the lobby, he heard the clerk speaking softly, but paid no attention.

  The clerk spoke louder, “Sir, don’t hurt that lady.”

  There was no one else in the lobby so John turned and looked at the man. “Were you talking to me?”

  The man behind the counter was unshaven and partially bald with colorless hair in tufts around the top of his head. He peered at John with watery gray eyes, the heels of both hands resting on the edge of the counter.

  “Sir, that’s a nice lady and we don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “What are you talking about?” John asked.

  The man seemed to shuffle his feet in place. “The lady in 207. You were making a lot of noise in there last night. We all heard it. She’s a nice lady and we don’t want to see her abused or heartbroken again.”

  By the time he had finished his statement, he looked like he was ready to bolt from behind the meager safety of his partition.

  John was ready to go on the offensive but thawed somewhat. “Don’t you people have anything better to do than listen at other people’s doors?”

  The man’s face reddened, and he didn’t speak.

  John continued, “I have no intention of harming her. She needs more than she Will ever find here. Don’t deny her what little comfort, dignity, and privacy she has.”

  The man nodded in agreement, “We just like her is all.”

  John nodded also, “I like her too—a lot.”

  That day he drove the eighty miles to Dennison, getting a feel for the place. The construction company office was easy enough to find, being one of several businesses bearing the name Piggott.

  There were major highways leading in four directions, but there were no large cities nearby. Even without one to disappear into, what he had in mind was still possible.

  He returned to Richmond, stayed three more nights in the hotel, and completed the deal for the driver’s license.

  That evening he saw Alice as planned and assured her that no one would bother them: or her after he was gone. She just looked at him and didn’t ask how he could be so certain of that.

  Their nights were ever more intense but also more loving and tender. After he returned to his room at the end of the second night, he had fleeting dreams. In one of the dreams, a woman from a bygone era was prominent and partially disrobed but passive.

  When he awoke, her features were not clear in his mind. Even though he could not see her face or remember touching her in the dream, the movements, shape, and smell of her were all very familiar: the essence of the woman he had been intimate with for the past two nights—Alice.

  At the end of their fourth night together, she told him that he should leave the next day.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “This is something that happened in a time and place when we both desperately needed something. It cannot be a permanent relationship. The longer we delay, the harder it will be too part.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “We are from different worlds, and you, my young lover, happened to be traveling on a path intersecting with mine. You’re a young cavalier still seeking his fame and fortune, and I’m a woman treading water in a pond that I can’t, and won’t, leave.” She kissed him softly on the lips.

  “I love you,” he said - for the first time ever.

  “And I love you too, but there are still things that are more important to both of us. That comes with being a responsible adult. For either of us to hold on would ultimately hurt the other more.”

  They kissed again, and then separated. He knew she was right, but he didn’t want to leave her, especially without helping her in some way. He knew in his heart that offering her money would be degrading.

  ”May we write; stay in touch?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’d like that, and we should,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Somehow we have some kind of an eternal bond.” She continued, “I have a post office box. I’ll slip the address under your door when I leave in the morning. Now go.”

  He started to open the door, but she pulled him back and whispered, “Wait for at least a year, but whenever you come back this way, I’ll always be available for you.” She hesitated slightly and then blushed, “Even if I’m married.”

  Her statement bewildered him. She had pushed him out and locked the door before he could think of anything to say.

  John resumed his trip to Suffolk to see his grandfather Tilman with thoughts of staying there with him and making Suffolk a permanent home. When he drove up the gravel-covered inclined driveway, he recalled his first visit and the snakes Tilman had killed and tossed down against his side of the van.

  He recognized now that it had been an object lesson, meant specifically for him. Til didn’t stop in the driveway and kill snakes every time he drove in.

  He stopped next to a sheriff’s car parked in front of the house and sat in his car looking the place over. Somehow it seemed both neglected and dilapidated since he’d last seen it more than three years before. The old Chevy van that he thought Til would keep forever was not there.

  As he stepped from the car, Elmer stepped down from the screened-in porch with a coffee cup in his hand. He was wearing his uniform pants and a yellowed, sleeveless undershirt.

  He looked at John and said, “Oh, it’s you. I didn’t recognize you; ain’t seen you for a few years.”

  “Where’s Til,” John asked.

  “Cemetery. He had a massive heart attack three months ago,” Elmer stated as he raised the cup to his thin lips.

  John recalled Tilman knocking him back against the car with a single punch years before. He thought to himself: Hell, I’m big enough to do it myself now.

  “What are you doing here,” he asked Elmer.

  “Own it, least my maw does.” He caught the surprised look on John’s face and continued, “Your grand-pappy and my maw never legally divorced and he didn’t leave no will, so we got it all.”


  John digested that information, then asked, “Where’s my stuff?”

  Elmer tilted his head back over his shoulder. “In the shed back yonder, if nothing carried it off. If you hadn’t showed up before long I was going to get rid of it.”

  John glared at him, “My personal property?”

  “Hell; I ain’t charged you no storage on it, leastways not yet. Just take it and get on. You can check down to the court house on the heart attack, and the probate, if you got any doubts.”

  John bristled. “I will, and I’ll talk to Sheriff Hawkins too.”

  Elmer grinned at him, reminding him of a wolf he’d seen in Germany.

  “Wondered when you’d get around to that. Hawkins had a stroke, cain’t even talk.” Elmer grinned even wider. “You’re looking at the new sheriff, now.”

  John didn’t reply and walked on around him and out to the shed. He found his fishing rods jammed down into a space between two of the exposed wall studs along with some yard implements. One of the fiberglass rods was broken near the tip, but both of the -ABU Garcia- open-faced spinning reels were intact.

  His tackle box was on top of, and partially sunken into, the top cardboard box of two resting on the floor. The boxes contained most of the remainder of his possessions. There was an open oilcan with a metal spout sticking out of it lying beside the tackle box to drain. Some of the oil, and apparently some from previous cans, had dribbled down into the boxes. He was disgusted at the treatment of the rod, and the indifference to the boxes, which held family photographs and personal history documents.

  He looked through the shed for more, but there were only a few scattered boy-things and he really didn’t care about them.

  He carried the boxes out to his car one at a time, with the tackle box on top of the first and the rods on top of the second. Both boxes were limp from the dank shed, and he was forced to support the bottoms with a hand underneath. Elmer stepped into his line of travel during his next return trip, forcing John to veer around him with the second box.